I'll show how to install Windows 2000, XP, or 2003 on a SATA disk without much hassle. Additionally, when you use this with Windows 2000, you avoid the Win2k IDE driver bug which can cause installation failures as described in the VirtualBox manual section 11.2.2; you will not need to provide any delayed writing in order to install it on a fast computer.

You need:1. Sun xVM VirtualBox version 1.6.0 or higher (this process has only been tested on 2.2.0, however)2. Windows 2000, XP, or 2003 installation CD-ROM; any release/edition should do, although this process has only been tested on the latest service packs3a. If you need Windows XP or 2003:Download the drivers from Intel3b. If you need Windows 2000: There are no official drivers, however you may use unofficial drivers as described in an MSFN forum post. WARNING, of course, that using these drivers comes with a certain amount of risk; scan with virus checkers and back up important data inside the VM periodically, I cannot guarantee the safety of these drivers.

For Windows 2000, you need to create a floppy disk (real or image) from the unofficial files you downloaded; all the files should be placed in the root directory of the disk.(Under Windows, I am unfortunately not well-versed enough to understand how to create floppy images using native tools, however the GNU/Linux instructions should work under Cygwin as well)To create an appropriate image under GNU/Linux hosts, you will need the unzip and mtools software packages installed (check your local package manager):

(note the position of the quotes on the last command, the asterisk cannot be placed inside quotes!)

For Windows XP/2003, you need to extract the f6flpy32.zip Zip file. Inside it is an EXE; all it does is write an image to a real floppy; if you're already using Windows and want to make a real floppy disk, go ahead and use it, otherwise just use an UnZip utility to extract the image (named F32.IMA).

Just create a virtual machine now for Windows, and change the virtual hard disk so it uses SATA instead of the default IDE. Mount the floppy in VBox (either real or the disk image, the latter is faster), and make sure that the floppy drive is not set as one of the boot devices (or press F12 when you start the VM and boot the CD-ROM manually).

Press F6 when Windows Setup prompts you if you want to load additional drivers. It doesn't seem to take effect immediately, but just wait a few seconds. Once that is done, this screen will come up:

After that's done, just press Enter to continue installing Windows as normal. Be sure to remove the floppy disk after the text mode portion of the installation is completed, or you may encounter boot issues (the floppy is not bootable itself of course).

Windows 2000 in the graphical portion of the setup might warn about unsigned drivers being loaded, this is normal as the drivers in use are not official ones from Intel.

Thanks, I will sticky it. This is for 2000, XP and 2003 Guest systems, as Vista and above already has the ICH8 driver. Older Windows Guests will not be able to use SATA in this way. They might be able to see and read/write it, but that is currently unknown.

Usually, I advise people to use nLite to integrate it, but this is also an option and saves the trouble of extracting the iso/copy the cd to the hard drive. Great Howto.
As it's a howto, I will also lock it so it won't be cluttered with questions and all, that is for a separate topic.

Matrix Storage Tech drivers v8, will completely kill the io performance once windows reaches the finalising stages (post install user config) and also ruins an existing installs performance. (i actually tested 7 different MST8 drivers and got this issue with all of them).Rapid Storage Tech 9 has issues with CDRoms on the sata controller, Bsods when used as an F6 disk.Rapid Storage Tech 10 provides the best performance i have seen for existing guest installs but again, Bsods when used as an F6 disk.

Best to install Matrix Storage Tech 7 drivers attached to Sasquatches post, and upgrade straight to the RST 10 drivers once windows installation is completed.

It seems a lot of people are trying to use the IRST10 or 9 drivers in the setup and getting the bsod.

First of all you install the OS (tried it with win2k, xp and 2003 RC2 x64 - newer should work too) with the usual IDE in VBox. After the installation finished, you shutdown the Guest OS and add the SATA-Host/System/Option/Whatever to the storgage tab without any drives.

After you boot your OS again (on the IDE storage) windows wants the driver for the new found sata system. Now you can install the intel raid / AHCI drivers and reboot again. Now you just need to move the boot drive etc. from IDE to SATA and windows starts without problems from SATA. No reg hack needed in xp/2k etc.

I believe these Intel drivers will work on XP (having tried them just now):RST and AHCI Driver and GUI 10.0Download and run the GUI\iata_cd.exe program inside the above driver file, which will install AHCI drivers and the Intel Rapid Store software.Or use the Device Manager > Update Drivers > Have Disk path and Select the folder with the unzipped iaStor.inf file (drivers\x86 or drivers\x64) to install just the drivers.